Paris loses another domain name dispute

The city of Paris (Ville de Paris) continues to have trouble understanding trademarks and domain name law.

It just lost another domain name dispute, this time for permislib.net.

In this case, the panel found that Permislib.net wasn’t confusingly similar to any mark in which the complainant was claiming rights. Through a partnership, the city has a service called Autolib. But autolib and permislib aren’t very similar.

Paris has a long history of badgering domain name owners. It once convinced a rogue panelist to transfer the domain name Parvi.org in a UDRP. That decision was overturned in a U.S. court and Ville de Paris was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.

The city has also gone after anyone with Paris in their domain names, including Paris.com, Paris.tv and even WifiParis.com.